“It’s not too late to start selling on Walmart.com before the holidays,” Walmart advised merchants today, and cited research from eMarketer predicting 15.5% growth in online holiday sales this year.
Etsy also issued a holiday-season message for sellers, with both online marketplaces publishing a list of key dates related to holiday shopping and seller-preparation.
A notable event on Etsy’s calendar: it will hold a Labor Day & September Sales event from August 31 to September 6.
Etsy also reminded sellers who might be planning to travel for the holidays that they could download the Etsy Seller app for iOS or Android “so you can manage your shop efficiently, from anywhere.”
In addition to listing holidays, Etsy went further, breaking the shopping season into distinct periods based on last year’s shopping data:
Halloween: Traffic picks up Aug 1, peaks Oct 3, tapers off Oct 31
Advent: Traffic picks up Sep 15 , peaks Oct 15 , tapers off Dec 25
Thanksgiving: Traffic picks up Sept 1 , peaks Nov 4 , tapers off Nov 28
Christmas Day: Traffic picks up Sept 1, peaks Nov 28, tapers off Jan 2
Christmas Jumper Day (UK): Traffic picks up Oct 1, peaks Dec 5 , tapers off Dec 25
Hanukkah: Traffic picks up Oct 10, peaks Nov 9 , tapers off Dec 10
Etsy appeared to be messaging existing sellers, while Walmart’s message was geared to attracting new merchants to its marketplace (it listed fees in popular categories), and it encouraged them to use its fulfillment service.
Not surprisingly, both marketplaces suggested sellers set up advertising campaigns to attract holiday shoppers.
Meanwhile eBay said it would share holiday predictions during its next quarterly seller checking taking place on Thursday (August 4).
Advertising campaigns ?
No Thanks.
They never pay off.